Emotional Level
by rabidsamfan
Summary: A drabble arc about the battle on the bridge, and what happened afterwards. Spoilers, naturally...
1. Chapter 1

_That's **Watson's** cane._ Had the realization not frozen every muscle in his body, Sherlock Holmes might have been able to interfere with Lord Blackwood's abrupt dismissal of Irene Adler's best efforts. The metalshod tip of the cane was pointed at her throat before his brain had even begun to start cataloging all the possible ways in which Blackwood might have acquired that most intimate of all John Watson's _accoutrements_. Irene recognized it too, and the pleading farewell she sent him with her eyes was mixed with a comprehending pity. He raised a hand, his protest hanging in the air.

"No!"


	2. Chapter 2

Adler fell, and the thump of an impact not far below the bridge startled Holmes's synapses into functioning. He closed his heart and thought.

_Watson is either dead or he isn't, and in neither condition would he wish me to stand weaponless. Grabbing the sheath of the sword-cane will leave Blackwood with a length of sharp steel, but will also give me the means to block it. There is a seventy-five percent probability that Blackwood will succumb to the temptation of focussing his efforts on the sword, leaving him open to assaults with axe, rope, chain, net, fist..._

Holmes attacked.


	3. Chapter 3

Dispatching Blackwood, once he was immobilized by the weight of the rope and anchor which were pulling him inexorably towards the abyss, would have been simplest. Instead Holmes critiqued the deception which the errant Lord had played on the nation, dissecting the illusions designed to force him – Sherlock Holmes! – into publicly granting the possibility that magic, and not logic, ruled the world.

Carefully, he reassembled Watson's stick, and did not tell himself that the slow murder of the _persona_ which Blackwood had so carefully constructed was cruel. A quick death would be kinder.

But it would not serve as revenge.


	4. Chapter 4

Fate, or physics, saw to it that Blackwood would not face trial. That, or the Devil had grown impatient of waiting. Holmes had no sooner readied himself to counter the return of the axe he had used to cut his prisoner's weighted tether when the crash of falling machinery rendered all plans moot. Blackwood hung for a moment in a web of chains, and Holmes looked down upon him, too cold within to take any satisfaction at the dawn of true fear in those dark green eyes. Mortality was a factor that Blackwood had clearly failed to take into account.


	5. Chapter 5

Blood was trickling down his arm, distracting him, and so he bound his scarf around his sleeve, unwilling to investigate the damage properly just yet. He found the chemical cylinders, and then began to look for his revolver automatically. The Woman had brought it with her, and left her own, empty gun on the floor of the sewer. Not that it had saved her. A temporary workman's platform below the span of the bridge had done that.

Probably. She hadn't moved.

"Clear as you go," he told himself, since Watson wasn't there to remind him, and began to clamber down.


	6. Chapter 6

Once he was certain that Irene was not too terribly damaged he didn't bother wasting time in worrying. It was enough to extract the information he needed, and to sit beside her, restocking his energies for the long descent to the bank of the river. When he left her to climb back to the place where he had secured Watson's walking stick, he had the Maharaja's diamond in his pocket. It would make a fine engagement ring. A promise for a future, if there was still a future to be had.

_Married_, after all, was a vast improvement over _dead_.


	7. Chapter 7

200 steps.

He started down the stairs, his mind full of Moriarty. A professor, easily traced, teaching near enough London that the chalk dust hadn't had time to be brushed away before the rendezvous with Irene Adler.

150 steps.

She had no doubt extracted herself from the cuffs by now. She'd find a way to cross the river. Vanish. Leave him.

100 steps.

He knew the ache in his chest had nothing to do with her.

50 steps.

The tap of the cane on the metal steps slowed.

25 steps.

He couldn't avoid the truth much longer.

Ground level.

_Watson._


	8. Chapter 8

The passageways of the sewers had seemed less labyrinthine on the way from Parliament to the new bridge. Drier too, although some corner of Holmes's brain knew that the storm above was to blame for the current which tried to push him back toward the river. The swelling waters gurgled noisily through the narrower tunnels, gushing into wider passages with a force that echoed against the walls, drowning out the sounds that Holmes most wanted to hear. He pressed on, bracing himself against the walls, until he came to the broad storm drain that ran the length of the Embankment.


	9. Chapter 9

Still no sign of Watson. Holmes was running out of possibilities now, even as he was running along the narrow path beside the rising torrent, beginning to come closer to the inarguable truth that Watson had not tried to follow. Might not, indeed, have been able to follow, no matter what he'd said about managing. The man was fresh out of hospital after all, and the giant called Dredger had demonstrated a tenacity which was truly formidable. Watson would have been weakened by the time Blackwood found him, unable to prevent the man from taking his stick. Or his life.


	10. Chapter 10

He became aware of a slow series of clangs, came around a bend and saw that someone had pried the manhole covers free in front of him, allowing dull grey light and rain to fall into the tunnel. Another one was pulled away, not ten yards in front of him, and a familiar head leaned down with a lantern.

"Lestrade?" he called, and the policeman's face turned toward the sound. "Lestrade!"

"Holmes! Get up this ladder before you're drowned!" Lestrade countered.

"I've got to find Watson," Holmes protested, though he slowed to a stop.

Lestrade scowled. "We already have done."


	11. Chapter 11

Holmes would have interrogated Lestrade as he climbed the ladder, had not the inspector had the good sense to withdraw from the hatch. As it was he had the questions he wanted to ask rattling around inside his head. _Is Watson alive? Is he unhurt? Where did you find him? How on earth does he manage to climb one of these things without losing a grip on this cane?_

As he emerged onto the street he saw Lestrade ordering several constables to go and close the manholes they'd opened. And beyond Lestrade, a police wagon, the door hanging open. _There_.


	12. Chapter 12

Not even the lingering stink of the sewers could hide the scent of blood. Holmes found himself hesitating as he reached the Maria, not wanting to look farther than the evidence of Watson's blue suitjacket on the floor, not wanting to acknowledge the damage that would have rendered it unrecognizable to a less perceptive man. The lining was ripped open, frayed edges of the silk feathering out with scarlet-stained tips from the crumpled ruin.

Before he could breathe, the figure sprawled along one of the benches stirred sluggishly. "Don't fret, old cock," came a tired voice. "It's just a scratch."


	13. Chapter 13

Holmes fairly leapt up into the Maria, stumbling on the discarded jacket and landing painfully on his knees beside the bench, but that put him into a perfect position to examine the damage to Watson's side. It wasn't a scratch. It was a gash, several inches long and deep enough that the blade which made it must have scraped against bone. It had also bled profusely, judging from the stains which had soaked Watson's remaining attire from neck to knee. But Watson's eyes were bright with amusement, not fever. Holmes grinned and settled back on his heels. "Hello, Mother Hen."


	14. Chapter 14

"What's happened to your arm?" Watson tried to sit up, and Holmes pressed him back gently. "Just a scratch," he said. He pushed himself up onto the opposite bench and sat where he could see Watson's face more easily.

"I see Lord Blackwood gave you back my walking stick. I shall have to find a way to thank him."

"There's no need for courtesy, old fellow. Blackwood's dead for certain this time." Holmes passed over the walking stick, and wasn't surprised to see Watson's knuckles whiten as he closed his fist around the wood.

"Killed him, did you?"

"Not intentionally."


	15. Chapter 15

"Right." Lestrade's arrival took them both by surprise. The inspector closed the door carefully, took a seat next to Holmes and rapped on the roof to signal the driver to start off, before treating them both to a look that combined satisfaction and exasperation. "You can tell us all about it on the way to the hospital. As long as you're _certain_ that Lord Blackwood's dead this time."

"Very. He's dangling off the new bridge."

"So I'm told. But there ain't been nobody willing to haul him up and check his pulse."

To both detectives' astonishment, Watson began to laugh.


	16. Chapter 16

"Leave him for the ravens," Watson gasped, holding the wad of cloth he was using to staunch the blood more tightly against his side. "I've done with signing death certificates."

"I see," Holmes said placatingly, although he felt that Watson's hilarity was more than the joke warranted.

Watson was still grinning. "Do you know what I did?" he asked. "When Blackwood turned up to check on his machine while I was still trapped under that giant of his? When he took my own swordstick and decided to make a shish kebab of the two of us? _I played dead_."


	17. Chapter 17

The Maria rattled through the remains of the panic that had spilled out of Parliament, the driver blasting his whistle to clear a path through the disintegrating mob. Inside, the shouting barely registered. Holmes was weaving words, describing in detail all the ways in which Blackwood's machinations could be revealed, while Lestrade scribbled notes.

Watson kept growing paler; the thin line that marred his forehead on cold mornings deepening as he clung determinedly to the distraction of his friend's voice. Holmes recognized the phenomenon, and elaborated all the more, counting the streets that still lay between them and the hospital.


	18. Chapter 18

Lestrade caught Holmes's arm as the doctors berated Watson for leaving hospital without permission that morning. "That's twice in two days," the policeman said grimly. "_Twice _in two days I've had to bring him here."

Holmes saw the wretched state of Lestrade's trouser cuffs, saw the dimensions of the bloodstain on the stocky shoulders which not even a black coat could hide, saw the shadows that had worn themselves a place beneath tired eyes, and knew precisely how Watson had been carried up the ladders that led out of the tunnels below Parliament.

"I shan't make it three," he promised.


	19. Chapter 19

It was only much later, after Holmes had finished pestering Watson into having his side seen to, and Watson had finished pestering Holmes into having his arm seen to, and the doctors had finished pestering both of them into agreeing to stay in hospital overnight, that Watson finally gave way to exhaustion, one hand still curled possessively around his walking stick.

Holmes tottered stiffly to the chair by Watson's bed, and watched Watson sleep, acknowledging the bruises now that there was no need to pretend them away. No need to pretend away his fears, either, now that they'd been banished.


	20. Chapter 20

He woke to moonlight and a blanket draped over his shoulders, his fingertips still measuring the steady pulse in Watson's wrist. A newspaper left folded by his hand proclaimed Lord Blackwood's death and the arrest of his co-conspirators, and the lilac scent upon the paper identified the source as Miss Morstan, so he was not surprised to see her when he raised his head.

"If we pull the other bed over," she observed quietly, "you can get some sleep, and he'll still see that you're all right when he wakes up."

"You would do that?"

"He cares for you, too."


End file.
